Best way to localized applications in .NET 2.0?

[cyberjoe]

Hi,

 

I would like to ask you what is the best way to localize applications in .NET 2.0 and

how Microsoft do it in Vista?

 

cyberjoe

[PlausiblyDamp]

.Net provides some built in localisation mechanisms for you. When developing web applications you can go to the tools menu and get VS to generate a resource file from a given page - this moves all strings, images etc. out of the HTML and stores them in a resx file. Further languages can be added by providing new resx files.

 

Also rather than storing strings that you use programatically in the actual source you can also store these in resource files.

 

At runtime .Net determines which language to use based on the installed languages of the browser making the request.

 

I would recomenfd taking a look at this blog entry as it links to a couple of walkthroughs plus a way to store the resources in a database as an alternative to the built-in method.